The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(84)

“It’s a stupid poem,” Stevie replied. “I’ve read your poems. You’re a bad poet.”

Edward drew back in offense.

“Your stupid poem messed up the case for years,” Stevie went on, circling the space. “Everybody thought this was about Truly Devious. But there is no Truly Devious.”

“We were playing the game,” Francis said. “Like in the poem. ‘The king was a joker who lived on a hill and he wanted to rule the game. So Frankie and Edward played a hand and things were never the same.’”

“But you wrote that before you left school,” Stevie said, “before it all went wrong. You had no idea what was coming. You had something else in mind.”

Francis smiled quietly.

“So you’re in this,” Stevie said. “But you’re not responsible. No. You weren’t the person who was never there, the one on a staircase but never on a stair. You take the stair away—that’s what he was saying. Take the stair away and you have . . .”

The figure of George Marsh materialized in the seat next to Francis. He was wearing a pinstriped suit and a fedora. He was a large man, strongly built, with a square jaw. He folded his arms and stared at Stevie, challenging her.

“You’ve got nothing,” he said. “I’m in the FBI. I know when you have no case.”

“You’re wrong,” she said to him. “You made a mistake. You were seen by someone who loves mysteries.”

One more ghostly figure appeared in the circle—a girl, with curled hair and a gap between her teeth. She wore a plain brown wool dress and slightly crooked glasses. She clutched a book to her chest. She looked at George Marsh for a long moment, then turned to Stevie and nodded. Stevie nodded back.

The dark forms of trees, the pillars of the cupola, the statues all stood in witness.

“Gotcha,” she said to him.

Her phone rang. The phantom circle vaporized into the night, leaving Stevie alone with the flower petals.

“Are you coming back?” Nate said. “What are you doing?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“I solved it.”

A pause.

“Where are you?”

“The cupola.”

“I’m coming over,” he said.

Stevie lowered the phone from her ear and checked her messages again. Hunter had still not read the text. What the hell was Fenton doing? Not now. . . . The kid is there. The kid is there! Sure, people said stuff when they were drunk, but that was so specific, so insistent.

Suddenly her brain was itching.

Of course, people sometimes don’t answer their phones. Sometimes people say strange things. But these were discordant notes. She looked at the cement she was standing on. The remains of Hayes’s tribute crunched under her shoes. Ellie had been under them all along, all that time. They had walked over her. Had she heard them above, heard her friends passing overhead as the air grew stale, as she shivered, as she starved and dehydrated? The fear must have been extreme, beyond anything Stevie would ever know. Did she realize she was dying, down there in the dark? Did she make friends with that dark, with the thing that came for her in it? That insidious friend in the shadows who came to take her pain and fear away . . .

Why was the phone so quiet?

He said to do it. He said whenever. She clenched and unclenched her fists several times, then made the call. Larry answered on the second ring. Stevie could hear the television in the background and a barking dog.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“All right. Talk me through it.”

“I know who kidnapped Alice and Iris,” she said. “I know who killed Dottie.”

“What?”

“But that’s not it,” she said, her breath coming fast. “That’s not what’s wrong. I think . . . I’m worried? About the professor I work with in Burlington. And I don’t know why. Something’s wrong. I feel it in my gut.”

“Give me her address,” Larry said.





October 30, 1938, 6:00 p.m.


IT HAD BEEN QUIET ON THE SAILBOAT FOR SOME TIME. GEORGE Marsh and Albert Ellingham sat looking at each other as the sky turned a volcanic red and orange. A sensational Vermont autumn sunset was beginning.

“Be dark soon,” Albert Ellingham said, breaking the silence. “Very peaceful out here at night.”

The water lapped gently against the sailboat.

“Albert . . .”

“No, no,” Albert Ellingham said. “It’s too late for that, George. Carrying secrets is exhausting work. I know this from experience. The burden seems bearable at first, but as time goes on, it increases in weight. It pulls on you. Now it is time to put that burden down.”

“Albert . . .”

“You see,” Albert Ellingham said, ignoring the interruption, “I picked the right girl in Dottie Epstein. She was one in a million. I’m not sure anyone else could have gotten the answer to me. I’m only sorry it took me so long, Dottie. I was slow. I let you down. But I finally got there.”

He addressed this remark to the setting sun.

“I think perhaps I figured it out on a subconscious level, George. You must know that feeling as a police officer. You know on a level you can’t reach. It was clear someone inside the house had to be involved in the kidnapping. I had everyone investigated to within an inch of their lives. I found out about the cocaine that Leo had, that Iris was taking. I found out so many things about so many people that I didn’t want to know, but I didn’t find anything that explained what happened to Iris or Alice. The most obvious thing is the thing I missed. You really never do see the thing that’s right in front of you. I wrote a little riddle to myself the other day. It went like this: Where do you look for someone who’s never really there? Always on a staircase but never on a stair? I sometimes come up with my riddles automatically. My mind generates them and I have to solve them for myself. There are many things to try when solving riddles. Always on a staircase but never on a stair. In this case, the riddle is telling you to remove the word ‘stair’ from staircase. What word do you get? Tell me.”